The Editing Process (Oliver Jewers)

After we had finished our piece, my group and I decided it would be best to have different roles in the editing process. I was tasked with cutting the film together, whereas the rest of the group focused on the sound design and post process effects (filter, titles etc.)

After we had finished filming, I converted all the files from the SD card of the camera to the computer in which I would edit the film.

List of all the raw footage we had recorded

After this, I would go through the task of viewing every clip and choosing which ones we would potentially use in our final piece. I labelled the useful clips with ‘potential clips’ before moving them to a separate folder labelled ‘Definite shots’. This would allow me to easily sort clips together during editing.

I decided to edit my piece on windows movie maker as it was a cheap and easy option, our piece did not require any special effects and therefore we only needed a software that would provide us with a way of simply cutting the film together.

This is what the film looked like on the editing software

I used the shot list that I had created to put each of the clips into the right order before I could start to trim them down. Each shot I had chosen from the first cut added up to around 20 minutes of footage which I would have to trip down to around 2 minutes. Some shots tended to linger on for too long or did not quite fit the pace of the opening, to combat this I had to speed up and slow down certain shots in the piece to maintain a good pace.

Our group also decided that we would not use any sound from the original recording. This is because we lacked the budget to supply a suitable microphone on the set and thought it would be best if we did not use the microphone built into the camera. Therefore, we must record all sounds during post production to add to our film.

Here I have listed every sound we will need to record that would be added to our piece:

Television Beep for the please stand by screen.

Dialogue of the news reporter.

Footsteps.

Hand slamming and paper sliding off table

Knifes hitting table and unrolling (clattering together)

Folder thrown on desk and being opened.

Paper rustling.

Cleaning the knife

Character cutting hand (Character pain)

Drop of blood hitting paper

Page turning

Page turning back

Taking photo out of paperclip (paper sliding)

Character pocketing photo (fumbling)

Picking up two knifes

Small knife being thrown on wood table.

Character pocketing knife (fumbling)

Rolling up the knifes.

Taking Knifes and folder away.

Grabbing small knife quickly.

Stabbing paper.

Fumbling with keys and pocketing them.

Footsteps.

Door slam

Rough cut two

For the second rough cut, I used the feedback given to me to improve the opening. For example, in our first rough cut, some of the footage was out of focus and therefore did not fit as well with the rest of the scene, to combat this I had to look back at the original footage and choose a better section of footage to use. I decided to add another shot at the end of the sequence of the character leaving the room, this is because I think that it makes the narrative flow better.

A huge addition that was made during the second cut was to add diegetic sound to the piece. This was recorded post production in a makeshift sound studio by another member of the group and I was tasked with implementing it into the cut. I watched the piece and found each part which needed sound, before choosing the corresponding sound from a file containing all the sound recordings.

Oliver Jewers